Reforming America: steps to new politics

How can we save the Second Republic (built on the Constitution)? Or if it’s too late for that, how can we build a Third Republic on our experiences — perhaps a better one? Here are links to 129 posts giving specific help to those interested in joining this movement.

(1) How to reform American politics.

For every article proposing ways to make radical changes in America’s political system, there are a thousand articles describing our problems. It’s become entertainment, like baseball. Cheer our team! Thrill at tales of the bad guys’ dastardly deeds! More fun to read than discussing the years of difficult work needed to reform America, or the technical details of political tactics.

The FM website takes a different approach, asking only that you get involved in the movement to reform America’s politics. Rather than ask you to share our values and goals, we ask you to work for yours. These posts will help you to do so.

I have faith that more citizen involvement will make a better and stronger America. I don’t ask you to share that faith. I ask you only to have faith in yourself, and to see yourself as crew of America — not its passengers. Here are two summaries of my recommendations:

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10 thoughts on “Reforming America: steps to new politics”

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country.

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.

The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.

The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

Why not just hope for magic beans? We don’t have any organization capable of passing such a bill. The missing element is not nifty ideas about cures, but organizing people for the long trek to political reform. Perhaps at some point down the road such massive changes might be necessary.

On the other hand, I wonder if a nation capable of passing such a bill might not need it. That’s not to say it’s not a good idea, or that it wouldn’t help. But it’s part of winning, not a path to it. It lies in the post-victory phase — the pursuit phase. The phase we’re in now, as the 1% consolidates its power following decades of victories.

Since its introduction in 2006, The National Popular Vote bill has been endorsed by organizations such as the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, FairVote, Sierra Club, NAACP, National Black Caucus of State Legislators, ACLU, the National Latino Congreso, Asian American Action Fund, DEMOS, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Public Citizen, U.S. PIRG, and the Brennan Center for Justice.

National Popular Vote Inc. is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation whose specific purpose is to study, analyze and educate the public regarding its proposal to implement a nationwide popular election of the President of the United States.

More than 2,110 state legislators (in 50 states) have sponsored and/or cast recorded votes in favor of the National Popular Vote bill.

The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican and purple states with 250 electoral votes, including one house in Arkansas (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), New Mexico (5), North Carolina (15), and Oklahoma (7), and both houses in Colorado (9).

The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

How’s about I be charitable and assume I’m replying to a bot that just wants to try to prove I’m not a spambot before it posts my comment. There are better (and devoid of insult) ways of confirming unknown prospective posts. We await Webmind’s arrival to save us from the spam scourge (or you could learn to understand the net – it’s really all just bits).

So, care to answer the question: “shouldn’t your first act be to secede from the union?”

(1) Don’t take everything so personally. Your comment was cryptic, with no obvious relevance to this post, in the general form of spam (that’s not a criticism, spam is designed to look appropriate without having any visible relationship to the post).

(2) “shouldn’t your first act be to secede from the union?”

That doesn’t make sense on several levels. First a trivial point: “secede” is to withdraw formally from membership in a political union. Texas can secede. People can surrender their citizenship, switching to another nation. Second, why is this a relevant question to this post? Why should someone’s “first act” be to switch nationalities?

(3) “It’s a moral imperative”

Why? This is too cryptic. You need to give readers a bit more information so they can understand your message.

So you surrender your US citizenship and become stateless? Aside from the practical difficulties (passport?), you become a kind of parasite — benefiting from nations run by their people, while you refuse the responsibilities of citizenship. Have you done that? I suspect not.

‘Refuse to be party to a tyrant’s regime”
The US is a “tyrant’s regime”? Dramatize much? That’s silly.

“Don’t edit my words.”
I reply to direct quotes to avoid confusion. Quoting is not editing.